'85 Merkur XR4Ti Rally Car

In reply to mazdeuce - Seth :

The NX is technically mine! Well, I guess "technically" Chris', since he bought it. But it is still mine, you know, once I get around to that motorcycle license thing .

I heard coolant is supposed to look like this:

And the hoisting in progress:

FWIW: You would like you lower intake to like more like this one. That one is just knife edged and you want more of a airplane wing edge.

In reply to ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ :

Obscure late 80’s Honda’s? How about an NT650?

In reply to hobiercr :

Yes please, and an NX650 and a TransAlp while we're at it.

I kicked off this weekend by attempting to rebuild one of my T3 turbos using a cheap Chinese kit:  

This part fits, but the rest don't:  

I tried to assemble it using just the seals and bits that fit, but when put back together it doesn't spin very well.  Chinese $30 rebuild kit can go berkeley itself, I'll try to use one of my old but good center sections instead.

I want to use my Cosworth turbine housing on the center mount header, but the studs are a little too long:  

Chopped down and tack welded:  

Turbo mockup, I'm going to weld AN bungs to the center section so that hopefully we won't have leaks in the future:  

On the intake side, I'm going to use the lower manifold from the old engine- but if you recall I JB welded the upper to it thanks to some nasty cracks.  Hammer and chisel took care of that:  

Clean it up with a wire wheel and, oh look better porting:  

I'm going to try using the fabricated upper intake and much larger throttle body from the parts car, it doesn't have an idle control valve but it should flow a lot better.  The parts car intercooler is also double the size of the Cosworth one, although I'm not sure I can make enough room for it:  

Also swapped the wussy stock cast aluminum motor mounts for the beefy rally ones:  

The engine is definitely reaching that last 10% of assembling that takes 90% of the time:  

We also got super high tech and took the rear suspension, stock diff, and Supra diff to my office and 3d scanned them- this should make it easy for me to crank out some reinforcement plates, gussets, and adaptors to piece together a beefier rear suspension and a real LSD to replace the car's current horribly bent components and ailing welded diff:  

Yes, I'm aware of the irony of using a very expensive tool to enable me to make very cheap parts for a crappy car 

"Yes, I'm aware of the irony of using a very expensive tool to enable me to make very cheap parts for a crappy car "  The very fact that you have the 'tool' availability far surpasses the subject matter.

In reply to kodachrome :

Um, eeeewwww!  That is coolant?

That shop has SO MUCH ROOM!  I love it!

In reply to Mellonmorse, Brian Cougar :

I think the old engine's head gasket may not have been sealing so well by the end of Black River Stages...

In reply to ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ :

Still, I’d rather have oil in my coolant than coolant in my oil...

In reply to Recon1342 :

Agreed, and it makes sense given that oil was being forced out of every available orifice- it probably got forced into the coolant through a marginally sealed passage somewhere.

Science!

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ said:

Science!

Nice. You making some better control arms for the rear as well?

In reply to Gaunt596 :

Gussets for the stock ones, and probably double skinning them by cutting up the ones we bent.

That is frigging cool.

Immediately after Thanksgiving, we kicked the weekend off right by loitering in a machine shop while a friend of ours made some adapters:  

Many hours of making chips later, we have the ability to attach a Supra diff to Merkur axles and a Mustang driveshaft:  

Back at home, we dropped the front suspension off the car: 

In doing so, we found that the spherical bearings in the strut mounts have gotten very clunky.  Luckily they're common bearings with some machined inserts, so replacements aren't hard to come by:  

The struts themselves have developed some play, so I took one apart (the other is soaking in PB blaster because it was being stubborn):  

The bushings are definitely in need of replacement; the struts are standard Bilstein 40mm inserts, so hopefully parts are easy to find:  

I checked my spam folder since my Esslinger oil pump drive never showed up, and lo and behold there was an email in there cancelling my order since apparently they ran out of them and have no idea whether they will ever make any more.  This means I'm going to have to use stock drive gears, which means no high volume oil pump.  I liberated the drive business from the old engine- the dreaded locking phillips head screws on this one cooperated, probably since they were in the room and heard me annihilate the ones on the new engine:  

Aux shaft looks good:  

Oil pump/distributor drive looks good:  

On the new engine:  

It's getting there, just a lot of welding, cleaning, and assembly to go.  If anyone knows where to find internal parts for Bilstein inverted struts online let me know!

You might want to check with John Vanlandingham since those are his struts.

http://www.rallyrace.net/jvab/

In reply to GPz11 :

I'm well aware that I could go through him, but since I actually want to get this done some time in the next year I'd like to source the parts myself.  John knows his stuff but his customer service isn't exactly great- I tried to buy his differential mount/adapter kit and have ended up making my own, if that tells you anything.

Yup, good point. I think his machinist moved away so it's harder for him to get things done.

Do you need measurements for anything for the diff mount? I'll be ripping mine out soon. Going over to a 8.8 IRS that I'll be getting after Christmas.

In reply to GPz11 :

Thanks for the offer, but I think I've worked everything out so it's just a matter of getting the remaining parts made.  I have tried to address issues that you and others have told me about as well.

Actually, speaking of addressing issues- GPz, when you "ripped the rear diff mount out" what actually failed?  Sheet metal?  I'm going to have the four stock bolts at the rear, as well as two large welded pieces with M12 bolts in shear holding the rear diff mount and want to make sure it's a sufficient amount of overkill.

It was bad welds to be honest but we put a steel plate inside the car. The diff mount is bolted to the steel plate with the body between them.

Thanks!  Where your outer bolts are, mine is going to have a big welded angle bracket on each side so hopefully it will be OK.

The stupid threaded end on that one strut insert continues to be stuck.  I have ordered an impact driver.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ said:

Immediately after Thanksgiving, we kicked the weekend off right by loitering in a machine shop while a friend of ours made some adapters:  

Many hours of making chips later, we have the ability to attach a Supra diff to Merkur axles and a Mustang driveshaft:  

Back at home, we dropped the front suspension off the car: 

In doing so, we found that the spherical bearings in the strut mounts have gotten very clunky.  Luckily they're common bearings with some machined inserts, so replacements aren't hard to come by:  

The struts themselves have developed some play, so I took one apart (the other is soaking in PB blaster because it was being stubborn):  

The bushings are definitely in need of replacement; the struts are standard Bilstein 40mm inserts, so hopefully parts are easy to find:  

I checked my spam folder since my Esslinger oil pump drive never showed up, and lo and behold there was an email in there cancelling my order since apparently they ran out of them and have no idea whether they will ever make any more.  This means I'm going to have to use stock drive gears, which means no high volume oil pump.  I liberated the drive business from the old engine- the dreaded locking phillips head screws on this one cooperated, probably since they were in the room and heard me annihilate the ones on the new engine:  

Aux shaft looks good:  

Oil pump/distributor drive looks good:  

On the new engine:  

It's getting there, just a lot of welding, cleaning, and assembly to go.  If anyone knows where to find internal parts for Bilstein inverted struts online let me know!

Holy shock travel batman, that's approaching trophy truck levels of travel